Wednesday, 19 Feb 2014, 9:11:00 AM

Tim Broughton

A 38-year-old homeless man was arrested on Thursday, Feb. 6 after letting himself into a Santa Monica Police Department patrol car and fondling the controls of the police computer system.

Officers of the Santa Monica Police Department had been called to the Ocean Park Community Center, located at 505 Olympic Boulevard, to assist staff at the location at 10:30 am on this day.

While one of the officers was with the staff, the other waited inside the police car. Suddenly a man opened the passenger door of the police car and sat inside.

The officer in the driver seat asked this man to leave immediately, but the man refused, saying that the only way to get him to obey was to arrest him.

The man then began to fondle the controls of the police computer system fitted to the vehicle.

At that point the officer walked around to the passenger side, opened the door, grabbed hold of the man, forced him out of the vehicle, took him to the ground, handcuffed him, charged him with interfering with a police officer, and put him back in the very same police car, thus satisfying this homeless man’s desire to be arrested.

The man was driven off to jail where bail was set at $10,000.

Editor’s Note: These reports are part of a regular police coverage series entitled “Alert Police Blotter” (APB), which injects some minor editorial into certain police activities in Santa Monica. Not all of The Mirror’s coverage of incidents involving police are portrayed in this manner. More serious crimes and police-related activities are regularly reported without editorial in the pages of the Santa Monica Mirror and its website, smmirror.com.